Ivan Eland: Despite George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s efforts to topple foreign dictators and use military power to forcefully impose democracy from without, democracy usually works better if it bubbles up from below by popular desire.

Walter Moss: Rather than using his leadership position as House Speaker to help educate new House Republicans and others, including American voters, about the noble history of political compromise, he succumbed to ignorance, displaying a lack of leadership.

Robert Reich: Political elites are worried about thunder on the right and the left, but they show scant understanding of what these growing anti-establishment forces signify. Meanwhile, the nation drifts.

Robert Fuller: Given the dysfunctional state of American politics, the need for a path that Right and Left can travel together is urgent. If conservatives and liberals cannot subordinate their partisan agendas to the common good, world leadership will pass to nations that do manage to transcend this obsolete ideological dichotomy.

It’s hard to believe that less than five years ago George W. Bush won re-election, and the G.O.P. secured control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Since that time, the Republican Party has gone through one of the greatest meltdowns in political history. Americans have been leaving the party in droves. And […]

The Body Politic

Dave Zirin: She is our Jordan. She is our Jim Brown. She is our Babe Ruth, calling his shots. She is no longer content to dodge bullets, but understands how to stop them. Serena is that rare athlete who has not only mastered her sport. She’s harnessed it.